Letters

A Bit Worried

The new Holocaust Museum in Washington is scarcely worth a serious protest. It is its own best confutation. People know this, but put up with such nonsense in the same way we put up with bad weather.

The real fight is the serious intellectual one. At issue is the integrity of the historical profession itself, our culture's quality of self-criticism, and our society's ability to resist a propagandistic view of itself and its history.

I suppose I am not alone in being a bit worried about the decision to change the format of the Journal. It should remain the kind of publication that is implicitly addressed to people yet unborn – like The Dial or The Yellow Book.

G.P.
Washington, DC

Neither of the Right Nor of the Left

The real, main strength of The Journal of Historical Review is precisely that it has no links with politics or religion. If the Journal says that something is true, it is not because it is of the right or of the left, but because it is truthful, and because a fact is a fact.

The great strength of revisionism is that it belongs everywhere and nowhere, that it is apolitical. Our adversaries are quite aware of this, and would therefore be very happy if we were to proclaim ideological or political aims, and thus confirm that they have been right all along in charging that we say what we say not because it is the truth, but in order to strengthen a political or ideological agenda.

Our adversaries would very much like to link us with, in particular, the extreme right, because they have created, especially through television, a real terror in people's minds about “extreme” anything, and in particular the extreme right.

Y.F.
Paris, France

“Multiculturalism”: A Response to Smith

In his attack [in the Winter 1992-93 issue] on my article, “The Challenge of 'Multiculturalism',” [Summer 1992 issue] Bradley Smith makes two errors. The first is to assume that I am advocating the distortion of history, and the other is to suggest that a “multicultural” approach is a good way to learn “what really happened” in history.

First, I am just as much in favor of finding out “what really happened” as is Mr. Smith. My point, which seems to have escaped him, is that the same event can be felt entirely differently by different groups, even when there is no dispute about what happened. Take, for example, the Harvard-Yale football game. There may be complete agreement in New Haven and in Cambridge as to what happened on the field, yet there may be joy in one city and grief in the other. The “multicultural” interpretation of the game would be one that forbade either emotion, for it would find them both illegitimate. Whether Mr. Smith likes it or not, there will always be emotion in New Haven and in Cambridge whenever Harvard plays Yale. To assume otherwise is to misread human nature, and that is exactly what the “multicultural” approach does.

The historical dilemmas I referred to in my article are therefore not at all “fake” as Mr. Smith claims. Was the settlement of the Americas by Europeans a triumph or a defeat? If this is a “fake” problem, let Mr. Smith solve it for us and put the controversy to rest. If he would prefer to argue that it depends on one's point of view, then he will find that he agrees with me in spite of himself. Different ethnic groups in the United States have different points of view – and probably always will. It is therefore impossible to do what the multiculturalists wish to do and teach history in a way that satisfies all of them.

This leads to Mr. Smith's second error. The true multiculturalists – almost all of whom are white – really do want a history in which there are no winners or losers. This is impossible, but they really do want a world in which Harvard students are just as happy as Yale students when Yale wins the game. The non-whites who claim to be multiculturalists are entirely different. They advocate histories that are not only explicitly pro-ethnic and anti-white but that are demonstrably false. If Mr. Smith is looking for renewed objectivity in the search for “what really happened,” the multiculturalists will disappoint him.

The ultimate goal of sincere multiculturalists is to reduce the differences between peoples, races, and nations to the point that history loses all particularist meaning and becomes a sequence of events in which no one takes more than an abstract interest. This day will never come because men are no more likely to look upon the past with dispassion then they are to look upon the future with indifference.

If anything is “fake,” it is multicultural history. It could exist only in a world in which men failed to distinguish their own interests from those of others. Any man who did so would be devoured. As Vilfredo Pareto once observed, “Whoever would become a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.”

Samuel Jared Taylor
Louisville, Ky.

Danger of Racialist Subjectivism

Over the years, the Journal and the Institute for Historical Review have earned respect for publishing only factually grounded material. Whatever the enemies of truth might say about the IHR, they have not been able to accuse you (at least not seriously) of printing lies. Having just read through the first [January-February] issue of the new-format Journal, I am concerned that your shift to a more “popular” approach runs the risk of squandering some of that hard-won respect.

In particular, I am dismayed by your treatment of the issue of race, and your apparent defense of racialist views. However much I might agree with you on this issue, a subjective treatment – particularly of race – blurs the line between fact and opinion and makes you much more assailable. Such an approach also suggests that everything else appearing in the Journal is equally subjective.

The IHR has had a formidable impact because of its factual presentation of historical evidence and its scholarly analysis. Please don't do anything to endanger that.

I.H.
Falls Church, Virginia

Open Mind on Holocaust

It is very encouraging to see that, according to a recent survey (New York Times, April 20), 34 percent of adult Americans aren't certain of the orthodox account of the Holocaust. Exterminationists will ascribe this to the failure of American education (that is, “indoctrination”). In spite of the deplorable state of US education, though, this survey seems to indicate that one-third of adults still have an open mind on specifics of the Holocaust story.

C. H.
Troy, Mich.

Takes Pride

I take great pride in playing some small role in forcing the Organization of American Historians to overturn their decision to sell advertising space to your organization. Like many historians, I suggested to the OAH that this was not a free speech issue.

Douglas R. Egerton
Associate Professor of History
Le Moyne College
Syracuse, NY

“Democracy”?

I could hardly believe the comments by Mr. H. P. of Norwalk, California in the Winter 1992-93 Journal (pp. 506-507).

Where is the “democracy” he speaks of when, in times like these, David Irving and others like him are punished, university degrees are annulled and withdrawn, a Professor Faurisson can be spat on in Toronto and nearly beaten to death in France, and many other outstanding, righteous persons treated likewise in other countries all for questioning a sacred doctrine? It isn't Nazis who are responsible for these outrages.

Where is the “democracy” when schools teach distorted, untrue history, anthropology, political science and sociology, and when entire nations are forced to accept the results of historical crimes?

In the aftermath of the First World War, prostrate Germany was not merely treated shabbily, she was politically and economically raped, with the intention of destroying her.

Until the whole truth is said openly in the face of those who oppress it, there can be no breakthrough or liberation from the terroristic rule of the manipulators.

Please do not compromise with the wicked. Our adversaries will not be impressed or soften as a result of your efforts at accommodation, but will only become even bolder.

E. S.
Underwood, Queensland
Australia

Work Appreciated

I can't tell you how much my husband and I appreciate your continuing good work. It has relieved a great burden we have long carried, caused by the disparity between what we know to be true and what everyone else seems to accept as true.
D.G.
Gainesboro, Tenn.

You are doing a great job. There are greater and greater numbers of people who support you.
L. V.
Colchester, Essex, England

I congratulate you on the excellent standard you observe in your Journal, while dealing with the most controversial chapters of history.
O. Z.
Karenpark, South Africa

Congratulations on the March-April issue of the Journal. The new size and illustrated cover is such an improvement. I'm quite impressed with the gutsy young David Cole.
T.L.
Delray, Fla.

We heartily endorse your Journal, and pray that you will continue to enlighten the citizens of our great country.
E.K.
Fredericksburg, Texas

I am a young man in the US Navy. I have a wife and two beautiful children, and I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I just wanted to let you know that what you are doing is greatly appreciated. Thank you all, and keep up the great work. The victory of truth depends on it.
A.F.
Oak Harbor, Virginia

Word for Word

I recently subscribed to your Journal, and have read the two 1993 issues word for word (every single word!). This is something I have never done with any other magazine, and only a few books. More important, I feel as though I received a Master's degree in truth – which is what I thought history was about. Now I know that no two histories are created equal. And nothing I have ever known or imagined equals the work and integrity of your truth.

From the height of my intellect to the bottom of my heart: congratulations on a great job in this huge effort to set the record to truth, and vindicate the victims of perjury.
W.T.
Huntley, Ill.

Epic Struggle

The “Holocaust” is a mania, an obsession, a fanatical new religion. Since April 22, we are confronted by still another outrage of this campaign, the most grandiose and insolent so far: the monstrosity in our nation's capital.

The “Holocaust” will not just go away. It has to be driven away. Considering the forces and personalities arrayed on each side, the “Holocaust” war is an epic struggle. The enemy is utterly ruthless, totally without scruples. Weighed by what is riding on the outcome, this struggle is western man's most crucial. Until it is won, other issues must be regarded as secondary.

The “Holocaust” lives by, and will die with, the lie of gas chamber.

C.H.
Beachwood, N.J.

Wartime Internment

I commend you on your efforts to bring historical truth to light, free of “politically correct” rhetoric. Thanks to your efforts, the public has begun to question the Holocaust lobby.

I hope you will consider publishing something about the wartime American internment of German- and Italian-Americans. While many people know that Japanese-Americans were relocated to detention camps, few realize that many European-Americans also suffered.

L. G. San Diego, Calif